Storage Options

Storage Options Available to Faculty and Staff at UCM

As a faculty or staff member at UCM, you have several options available to you for data storage. That is, you can store your important documents, drafts, spreadsheets, presentations, and any other files created by you in a variety of places. This document provides several points for you to consider regarding each type of storage available to you...

Your Personal Network Drive (H: Drive)

You can save files to this UCM-provided data storage location. It is commonly found by clicking Computer and looking for the H: letter, usually showing your network ID in the drive path designation.

Pros: Files stored here are easy to access from any UCM-owned computer, because they are tied to your network ID/logon. Files stored here are backed up nightly by the Office of Technology, providing an excellent back up for any unfortunate, unintentional file erasures. You have one gigabit of storage space available, but may request more space if you have a business need for this storage.

Cons: Files stored on your H drive are not available from off campus without special permissions for VPN access.

Your Departmental Shared Drive (F: Drive)

You can save files to this UCM-provided data storage location. It is commonly found by clicking Computer and looking for the F: letter, usually showing your department name in the drive path designation. This is the storage site that is shared with your co-workers in your department. You may also have access to other shared drives, based on special projects or groups with which you work.

Pros: Files stored here are easy to access from any UCM-owned computer, because they are tied to your network ID/logon. Files stored here are backed up nightly by the Office of Technology, providing an excellent back up for any unfortunate, unintentional file erasures. You can place files here for other individuals in your department to review and/or edit.

Cons: Files stored on your F drive are not available from off campus without special permissions for VPN access.

Your Google Apps @ UCM Account

You can save files to your Google Drive, which is associate with your Google Apps @ UCM email account.

Pros: Files stored here are easy to access from any computer, anywhere with an Internet connection. You can share files with individuals or groups, and control whether they have edit or read-only rights. You have a large storage capacity on this drive, and can both create documents directly in the Drive, or upload previously-created documents to store them on the Google Drive.

Cons: Files saved in Google Docs are not backed up by UCM. They reside in Google’s domain, and are therefore subject to Google’s availability. While Google is a stable platform, you may want to consider the criticality and security requirements for your files. You should not store personally-identifiable data (such as student date-of-birth or ID numbers) in your Google Drive account.

USB Drives and other Removable Storage

You can save files to a USB drive, a cd/dvd, or an external hard drive. This media is removable from your computer.

Pros: Files saved to external media are extremely portable, and can be opened on most computers, whether UCM- or privately-owned.

Cons: External media is not backed up centrally. If you lose the media, and you have not saved a copy of your files to another location as well, your files are gone. External media can be lost/stolen quite easily, so security is often a limiting factor in using removable storage.

Your Local Computer

You can save files to your desktop or laptop computer, preferably the D: drive.

Pros: Files stored here are easy to access and quick to load. Most desktop computers on campus have fairly large hard drives, which makes saving large files easier.

Cons: Files stored here are only available when you are at the local machine. If you try to work with these files from a different location, you’ll need special permissions for VPN/RDP access. Also, your files stored on your local computer are not automatically backed up; if your hard drive crashes, you could lose all the files stored on it.

Need Help?

If you have any questions about the storage options available to you at UCM, please contact the Technology Support Center at tsc@ucmo.edu or 660-543-4357